I’m really not sure. I’m a huge fan of Obama’s commercials promoting people to do community service and donate money to good causes, but I think that the liberal ideology counteracts that.

For the record, I have no desire to imply that liberals don’t ever help other people. However, I think that by promoting more government aid, which will be paid for via taxpayer dollars, the amount of individual humanitarian aid will go down.

It is my personal belief that I should do whatever I can to help those who are less fortunate than I am, and I have no problem donating time or money to those who are really in need.

Sadly, I don’t think that this is the thought process of many Americans. I think that as government spending increases for social issues more and more people say to themselves “I don’t need to donate money to this because my government is doing it for me” (my mother is a great example of this). Government spending on social issues — like health care and welfare — lessens the feeling of personal responsibility to help those in need. I also don’t think that the government has any idea how to run these programs — take DMVs for example.

In the past decade or so I think we’ve seen plenty of examples of aid agencies failing to properly function in the wake of natural disasters (just as an example). It seems that the money people contribute to these organizations is often mismanaged and wasted. I think charitable giving has to continue on the part of ordinary citizens and governments, but the growing inability of private aid organizations to handle crisis may discourage giving from a public over-saturated by pleas for donations.

I think that one of the major problems is the fact that after giving money no one knows what happens to it. At a time of chaos and disarray this may be a natural outcome. But, I believe that to continue to rally the good will of people around the world, organizations need to encourage personal connections between donors and aid recipients as well as transparency throughout their operations.

In this way, trust in the organizations will be strengthened and further financial support from those of us who are fortunate to be alive and well can become more consistent.

Mara Chinelli ’11
I think that in response to humanitarian crises, we need to consider better organizational methods of aid distribution. Bureaucratic protocols make these procedures inefficient when resources are immediately needed. When food and water finally arrive to appropriate locations, conditions are worse, which hinders distribution processes.

I recommend that major aid organizations, such as the UN, collaborate with smaller NGOs and local communities impacted by a humanitarian crisis. Big NGOs and foreign governments can develop better rapport with those affected and make greater strides with aid efforts. Humanitarian aid should also include long-term infrastructural programs while respecting a nation’s sovereignty.

More significantly, I think we need to think about how to prevent humanitarian crises from occurring in the first place. More often than not dire human conditions are man-made. The earthquake is not the only cause of Haiti’s destruction. A history of corruption, debt and foreign intervention is also to blame. Ethiopia’s famine in the 1980s is another example. Massive starvation was not due to a food shortage but was the product of inflated grain prices and civil war. Such events remind us that humanitarian crises are inextricably linked to the Third World. When we take out our wallets to make aid donations we should understand that human devastation is neither arbitrary nor inevitable.

Whatever the future will be, it ought to include uniform and centralized management. The developed countries that already have vast resources and centralized relief manage foreign aid superbly, whereas developing countries that are already crumbling squander or embezzle foreign aid. This leads to greater disparities in both response and outcome.

We are starting to more fully understand that some governments are inept protectors and caretakers of their own people, occasionally even turning away crucial aid out of pride or spite, and that NGOs have little power in these situations, necessitating direct foreign government intervention. One way to make results more uniform is to, as many have done with Haiti relief, donate to national and international NGOs that can more reliably and effectively deliver aid. But the overall aid comes in two ways: either by large-scale governmental or organizational donations, or by smaller individual contributions (which end up, most of the time, directly or indirectly in the hands of NGOs anyway).

To truly deal with crises, the first two must be capable of complete collaboration and fully assimilate the third. This will help ensure accountability, efficiency, efficacy, reliability and uniformity.